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shocked

boy was i shocked, i painted my poncho the way everybody said too, and if you cant find canvas head over to your local home depot. get some painters drop cloths. its cheaper then canvas at your local dry goods store. but the problem is when you paint it. i used a popular brand paint, but when it dried it was stiff and hard as a rock. what in the **** did i do wrong

The recipes in that thread all work great but I will warn you, even they will be a little stiff until they are broken in. The break in period is also not overnight so just use your new oil cloth and things will get better.

The recipes in that thread all work great but I will warn you, even they will be a little stiff until they are broken in. The break in period is also not overnight so just use your new oil cloth and things will get better.

Dustin

I don't know what process you've been using, but if you're using a pure paint reciept and following the same directions from Mrs. L's post above, it should be supple and bendable right away, depending upon how much starch you've used to treat the cloth. By the way, to the original poster, a lot of the problem you're experiencing is using the painter's cloth instead of springing for the correct cotton duck or cotton drilling. The weight, weave, and texture are completely wrong for accepting paint in the period manner

I don't know what process you've been using, but if you're using a pure paint reciept and following the same directions from Mrs. L's post above, it should be supple and bendable right away, depending upon how much starch you've used to treat the cloth. By the way, to the original poster, a lot of the problem you're experiencing is using the painter's cloth instead of springing for the correct cotton duck or cotton drilling. The weight, weave, and texture are completely wrong for accepting paint in the period manner

I wasn't implying it would be stiff as a bored. I have used two of the recipes in the document Mrs. Lawson attached and they both produced a finished product that was not as pliable as a blanket or some other type of untreated cloth. While i agree that it is bendable right away it is still to be a stiffer material than it originally was. I still say, a period of time later the piece of painted material will become even more bendable/pliable then when it initially has dried.

My comments are from an historic preservationists perspective and not as an expert in making CW equipment. The term Oil Cloth far predates the CW and was primarily a floor covering in the form of a small rug. They were extremely rigid and not intended to be pliable at all. I would eliminate the corn starch completely. What is available to us today as Turpentine is probably not what the recipe is referencing to. Mid 19th c. Turpentine was available in two grades. The Turpentine mentioned in the recipe would have been a highly distilled version with almost all of the gum removed. This is same material used in early lighting devices and marketed as Camphene, first emerging in 1832. Undistilled Turpentine was a problem for cotton lamp wicks for same reason it would be a problem in making a poncho. Too much gum which will dry hard when the spirits evaporate. Remember, paints didn't start as liquids. They were purchased as a dry pigment (powder) to be mixed with binders and aggregates when you received them. I haven't done a lot of research on the CW recipes but I know couldn't duplicate them by picking up ingredients at the local hardware store. That's a problem in architectural historic preservation too, but there's usually a way to recreate 19th c materials.

"Poverty is no disgrace, but it's a damnable inconvenience." --Mark Twain